If I believed that my answer were To a person who would ever return to the world, This flame would remain without further movement. But since no one ever returns alive from this abyss, If I hear the truth, I will answer you without fear of infamy.
Google translation of the epigraph to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (a poem I memorized in college and retained for many years) from Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Canto 27, lines 61–66.









